Writing vs Your Mood

[OliviaM]

So, I guess I can't watch Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and then go work on my erotica. It makes me imagine what Tituss would write. Or it makes me make fun of my own stuff.

"There were maybe 1000 werewolves in the entire country. What were the odds even one would randomly find her?"

PRETTY GOOD, IT TURNS OUT.

And then the werewolf fucked her in the ass.

The end.

 

[lovecraft68]

Mood can really affect writing. In 2014 my wife had two cancer surgeries and almost died from complications from the second one.

The stuff I wrote from mid 2015 into 2015 was some pretty dark, violent and all around nasty shit.

Honestly, I feel a lot of it was my best work, but if that's what it takes to harness it, I'll settle for medicore

 

[oggbashan]

When I'm feeling low - I write humor.

When I'm feeling great - I write darker stuff.

When I'm not feeling much at all - I just keep writing.

 

[OliviaM]

Mood can really affect writing. In 2014 my wife had two cancer surgeries and almost died from complications from the second one.

The stuff I wrote from mid 2015 into 2015 was some pretty dark, violent and all around nasty shit.

Honestly, I feel a lot of it was my best work, but if that's what it takes to harness it, I'll settle for medicore

I'm sorry to hear that about your wife.

From what I understand, Robert E. Howard wrote Conan under similar emotional strain. I remember reading somewhere that he yelled a lot while smashing the keys of his typewriter.

When I'm feeling low - I write humor.

When I'm feeling great - I write darker stuff.

When I'm not feeling much at all - I just keep writing.

I'm finding erotica is especially susceptible to mood. I don't know if it's true for everyone, but it sounds like it is. If I'm writing a space adventure or a mystery, I can get myself in and out of that mindset pretty easily. Writing with a sensual or sexual mood seems to be subject to a lot of things. It becomes a delicate balance.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm finding erotica is especially susceptible to mood. I don't know if it's true for everyone, but it sounds like it is. If I'm writing a space adventure or a mystery, I can get myself in and out of that mindset pretty easily. Writing with a sensual or sexual mood seems to be subject to a lot of things. It becomes a delicate balance.

My primary problem is that sometimes when I'm writing fiction for the mainstream (or nonfiction on foreign policy), I suddenly get into the mood to be writing erotica. That's how I started writing erotica in the first place. I was writing a scene in a murder mystery for the mainstream and suddenly the scene got verrrry explicit. I had to break away from the mainstream write and go off and make that scene into a separate story.

 

[OliviaM]

My primary problem is that sometimes when I'm writing fiction for the mainstream (or nonfiction on foreign policy), I suddenly get into the mood to be writing erotica. That's how I started writing erotica in the first place. I was writing a scene in a murder mystery for the mainstream and suddenly the scene got verrrry explicit. I had to break away from the mainstream write and go off and make that scene into a separate story.

How do you decide if you're just adding a sex scene to a mainstream book vs writing erotica? There's so much in mainstream fiction, especially modern work, that's borderline erotica anyway. Length of the section? Graphic detail?

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

Mood

I have a couple of manuscripts going at any time. My mood controls which of them I choose to write.

If I'm in an expansive mood, I write. If I'm more constrained, I edit.

It seems like every mood has a purpose.

 

[sr71plt]

How do you decide if you're just adding a sex scene to a mainstream book vs writing erotica? There's so much in mainstream fiction, especially modern work, that's borderline erotica anyway. Length of the section? Graphic detail?

I don't write graphic sex in my mainstream work or get very far into a sex scene at all--so it's easy to for me to separate them in my own work. The scene that got me started writing erotica--separately from the mainstream--is here on Literotica. It's the first chapter ("On the trunk of a car") of the "House on Park" series (it's GM, though, so you may not want to check it out).

In the original I had a detective ready to cross a street to question a possible observer of a crime who was working on his sports car. He was described as a James Dean type, working shirtless. The detective crossed the road and, not having given even a hint of GM interest in the novel before that, wound up having sex with the other guy on the hood of his sports car. That's when I went back across the street in the mainstream mystery novel and toned down the description of the James Dean type. In the meantime, however, I'd pulled the scene out of the mainstream novel, heated it up, and made it the first chapter of "House on Park," which became a whole different type of work with a whole different use of that house on Park Street.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

How do you decide if you're just adding a sex scene to a mainstream book vs writing erotica? There's so much in mainstream fiction, especially modern work, that's borderline erotica anyway. Length of the section? Graphic detail?

As far as I'm concerned, if there's an explicit sex scene, it's erotica. (Describing sex is just about never necessary to a plot, except maybe if the character gets violent during sex and it's a reveal about underlying problems. Even there, you can just cut to the next scene with the lover in the hospital.)

We just happen to have a lot of erotica in the mainstream marketplace. Which is one reason I wonder why people make a fuss about erotica at all. It's commonplace.

 

[oggbashan]

How do you decide if you're just adding a sex scene to a mainstream book vs writing erotica? There's so much in mainstream fiction, especially modern work, that's borderline erotica anyway. Length of the section? Graphic detail?

If the story works just as well without the sex scene then it probably isn't a good story, nor erotica.

The sex should be an integral part of the plot and essential.

 

[EverLux]

I've found that if I don't feel sexy, I don't write sexy.
Today is a no-shower, sit around in my PJs from last night, marathoning SVU day. I haven't written a single productive word.

 

[sr71plt]

If the story works just as well without the sex scene then it probably isn't a good story, nor erotica.

The sex should be an integral part of the plot and essential.

I don't really believe that--certainly not as a sweeping generalization. I think a story can be written on two levels--as a story without graphic sex and as erotica with the sex being depicted more fully. I've done it--frequently. The story I indexed on this thread does it. I still have that scene, without the sex--or even the hint of sexual urge--in it in the published mystery novel. It becomes a somewhat different story when you write it on two different levels, but I don't see the problem in either writing it or bringing the two separate versions off as complete stories.

 

[Kantarii]

I find it hard to write on my stories if my mood has shifted too much from when I started a new chapter, but I have found that a shift in my mood can also take the overall story in an interesting direction by helping to generate story ideas I wouldn't have considered from the beginning of the story. I don't write out my whole story before I start posting it to the site. I let the story take on a life of its own with each new chapter. So overall, my mood translates a bit different with each new chapter I write. Kant

 

[barefootgirl69]

So, I guess I can't watch Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and then go work on my erotica. It makes me imagine what Tituss would write. Or it makes me make fun of my own stuff.

"There were maybe 1000 werewolves in the entire country. What were the odds even one would randomly find her?"

PRETTY GOOD, IT TURNS OUT.

And then the werewolf fucked her in the ass.

The end.

I have nothing to add. I just wanted to say that this made me laugh! Neat and concise!

 

[ElectricBlue]

I dunno, it would liven up the policy papers some... that's pretty dry stuff.

Here in Oz, back in 2002, we had a fun scandal with the Foreign Minister and the head of another political party who famously switched party allegiance. Not sure if it all was official government policy though, but it gave the press some mileage.

My primary problem is that sometimes when I'm writing fiction for the mainstream (or nonfiction on foreign policy), I suddenly get into the mood to be writing erotica

 

[Bramblethorn]

I dunno, it would liven up the policy papers some... that's pretty dry stuff.

I was reading a textbook on statistical methods yesterday and the authors kept veering into discussion about the sex lives of redheads and in one spot, unicorns. It was, uh, not quite what I'd expected.

Here in Oz, back in 2002, we had a fun scandal with the Foreign Minister and the head of another political party who famously switched party allegiance. Not sure if it all was official government policy though, but it gave the press some mileage.

Oh, I remember that one. Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot... though I don't think the affair was public knowledge at the time she changed teams. Devastating for what was left of her party.

Original topic: yeah, mood affects what I write. I find it hard to write lovey-dovey stuff when I'm down, though black humour can good as stress release.

 

[NotWise]

I'm not always in the mood to write. I might rather build something or grow something. I'm rarely in a mood where I don't want to make something better; something new or something different.

 

[OliviaM]

I have nothing to add. I just wanted to say that this made me laugh! Neat and concise!

And yeah, to others talking about mood switches, I'm learning that when not in the mood for sexy times, I can work on editing or the meat of the plot itself, which requires an entirely different mindset.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

As a rule I don't do excuses. I do it, then do it again and again and again till I like it and get it right.

 

[MellowGem]

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